


Mark of Din

by GoddessOfGanon



Category: Legend of Zelda, ZelGan - Fandom
Genre: F/M, ganzel, zelgan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 08:44:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4428884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoddessOfGanon/pseuds/GoddessOfGanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's scored her heart; is it to much to ask that he mark her skin?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mark of Din

_The first time they touched was an accident._

               It had been a trade-off of dance partners that went to the right instead of left. Princess Zelda had been waltzing with the prince of Termina, a cold man whose fingers overlapped when they encircled her wrist, and when she turned, meaning to interlock hands with the duke of some further region, she was met with the scalding amber eyes of a man she had seen before leaving her father’s allied gatherings in a sweep of a black cloak and golden armor.

               Ganondorf Dragmire was a man she had seen enough of in throne room proceedings and downcast battle memorials. Her father, the king, had been attempting to secure an alliance with the Gerudo to make up for his fallout with the Gorons, and her dancing partner’s presence at the night’s ball seemed confirmation enough that the bonds were nearly secured.

Still, Zelda found herself questioning him. “You never attend the castle’s parties. What brought you out of the desert this time?”

               “Your birthday, princess, is a celebration I would surely cross the desert to see. And I only do not attend the parties because they happen so often. I attend one and I have attended them all.”

               She gave his hand a light squeeze as he twirled her. “Hyrule is in a period of prosperity. I do not blame my father for wanting to commemorate that.”

               “Every other weekend?” He raised an eyebrow. She only shrugged delicately with one shoulder, parting her lips to speak until she was interrupted by a surly invitation to dance breathed in her ear as an unwelcome arm slipped around her waist.

               The Terminian prince had returned, warmed by the fountains of alcohol he had come across since last dancing with Zelda. She looked him up and down to take in his sudden change in demeanor.  was unclear what he was speaking, as his words slurred together to sound more like ancient Hylian than any modern use of language. Zelda glanced at Ganondorf and noted the shadow that darkened his face, deepened his features. He kept her wrist in his grip as he removed the prince’s grasp on Zelda, and bent to deliver some biting threat to his ear that Zelda couldn’t catch, only see how the prince’s face paled in response.

               He suggested it would be the time for the princess to retire to her chambers for the night.

 

Their shadows cast upon the corridor walls walked side by side, for the first time, alone. 

“We do not have many male visitors to the desert, but I assure you if one had touched a sister of mine in any like way of that prince, the punishment would be swift, and on a chopping block.” There was something bitter, nearly acrid, in his tone, that earned him a glance from Zelda he was unnerved about not being able to discern.

               “He was drunk.” She said dismissively. “For the first time, it seemed. I would not have been so harsh on him.” He had slowed his steps, and she felt the urge to retract part of what she had said. “Not to say that I do not appreciate you stepping in. Now I can say I have seen the valor my father speaks when he speaks of you.” She noticed then he had stopped because they had reached her chamber doors.

               “I-Thank you.” She said swiftly, leaving him not to time to press a kiss to her hand before slipping the bolt into lock behind her.

               Approaching her vanity, she felt her heart racing with a speed she couldn’t keep up with, nor could she identify the cause. Seeing Ganondorf urged to protect her from something as harmless as a drunken prince elicited some feeling that a million weightless declarations she had heard from the blank faced soldiers that stepped before her father to announce allegiance to Hyrule could not. Many people feared being sincere in front of a princess, but she could sense no ulterior agenda from him.

She slipped her gloves off with a measure of trepidation. He had encircled her wrist so tightly, surely it would have left a mark? She inspected the unblemished porcelain skin as slowly, the air was let out of her lungs. Her eyebrows drawn in a contortion of disappointment that, if she came upon across a mirror, she would not recognize.

* * *

Zelda counted the third passing of an hour since she had placed herself on the steps outside her father’s study, waiting for his meeting with Ganondorf to cease. She felt herself become dull from waiting, until she thought about how he must have felt. She had sat on meetings with her father previously. The man spoke like molasses and repeated a point more times than a minutes ledger could count. It typically took three turns before he realized he had said it once.

               The princess unfolded herself from her slouch when the mahogany doors opened at last, revealing Ganondorf looking slightly deflated, and a glimpse of her father looking as energized as she imagined he was at any given hour of the morning.

               They greeted each other cordially, after pausing to confirm they were alone in the corridor. “I thought I could show you the gardens today.” Hopefulness spilled from her voice, like the golden curls that tumbled unbound past her shoulder, and he thought only a proper monster could deny such an earnest request.

               “It would be just as well. I would expect to see much more of the palace on my stay here, but I have not gotten much further than the King’s study. I had not realized forging an alliance would leave me feeling like a prisoner.”

               “Relations between Hyrule and the Gerudo are the closest they ever have been to friendly. I suspect my father wants to keep you around so things stay that way. He talks more than he needs to because he’s nervous. He feels Hyrule could slip back into dark times at the drop of a pin. I have to agree that there are times it feels that way.” An unbidden shiver passed through her as images of war and the downcast of Hyrule flashed before her; the nation had had its troubles since her birth, and she was more than a little untrusting of the peaceful times that seemed to lay so attainable on the horizon.

               Noting the shudder, Ganondorf brought his hand to her shoulder, stilling her shivering. Tilting his head to the light pouring in from the garden entrance’s open archway, he took his hand from her shoulder to clasp it behind his back. “Shall we continue to the gardens?”

               It was a blessing from the goddesses to find them deserted.

They took turns daring each other. He would take her arm in his when they passed under the shade of a particularly concealing trellis. She would brush his fingers with her own, to the point of interlocking them, when she thought she could hide it under the cover of his cloak. He would let his hand rest on the small of her back to guide her from a bramble that lay in her path.

               Their circuit of the gardens ended far too soon in the princess’s mind, and her lip slipped into a pout as she same the sand drip from the hourglass to empty. Ganondorf’s own thoughts on the matter mirrored hers, and he found his feet dragging on their way to deliver her to her chambers.

               Upon reaching Zelda’s door, he bent to ghost his lips against her neck with a touch like rose petals. It had no hope of leaving a mark, though she searched in vain in the reflection of her mirror that night. Unlacing the first knot of her nightgown, she took the flesh of her neck between her fingers and pinched it, watching as a pink mark sprang and faded before her. It would not be a difficult task, for a kiss to be pressed a bit harder than intended, or an embrace to wrap her in a spot where she was most sensitive.

Did he fear tainting her, somehow? Did he see her shoulders bared and note that not so much as a birthmark stained them? He would never lay eyes upon a sun spot or freckle, and perhaps that offended him. His own skin was filled with the sun, and starred with deep brown spots across the bridge of his nose and collarbone.

She had thought she would see unattractive because of this, not the type he would want to claim as his own. She confided this on one of their walks, which had become a near daily practice, when they had stolen a moment behind the lush wisteria.  He had brought his lips to her ear to answer, and his breath fanned down her neck. “To lay my lips upon a being so divine is a privilege I am not sure I have earned.” It was she who had to convince him, then, by draping her arms around his neck and closing the gap between them. The exchange of breath had nearly brought her heart out of her chest, though when he left her that afternoon at the garden’s gates, it was almost hard to believe that any such touch had transpired between them at all.

 

They had come a long way since then.

               Zelda sighed as he laid soft kisses to her brow, her eyelids and nose while his hands roamed up and down her body, gentle reminders of his presence but nothing adequate enough to grant her any secured bliss to last until their next meeting, as they became fewer and further between as the King demanded their time equally, though never together. He had grown to trust the Gerudo man with his life, but it went without saying that men of his position did not fraternize with young princesses.

               It was a trial they could try to squeeze around in fleeting moments, spent mainly in Zelda’s chambers, when he could press her down onto her bed and pretend she was his.  

               “Leave a mark,” She breathed, not for the first time, arching off the bed to bring their bodies closer together. His phantom touches still managed to leave her breathless. “Give me proof that this happened.”

               Ganondorf sighed and pushed his forehead against hers, not for the first time delving into the speech she had heard too many times before. “By now, you must know that I will not disappear. I am no apparition, no figment of your imagination. I am here, and I love you. Is that not enough?”

               “I would never say that,” She insisted. “I just think you would look good on me, is all.” She looked up at him from beneath her lashes, and the desire to have her be his own, have the kingdom and council know that, pressed against the walls of his heart until he could no longer suppress action.

               He cradled her head in his hands as he shifted her to a position where she lay on the bed which himself kneeling beside her. He dragged the pad of his thumb down the length of her neck before descending upon it with his lips. His tongue tested the spot beneath her chin, where an emphatic pulse confirmed enough to him of her own vitality. He fit the shape of his lips to the pulse point before drawing the flesh into his mouth a drawing in a steep breath. The mark would be immediate, he knew, even before he had taken the skin between his teeth, startling from her a gasp of his name that need not offer any more encouragement. He rolled the skin between his teeth, minding the canines, savoring the sound of her heart’s beating speeding to a tempo where it seemed there was no pause between beats. His lips descent trailed downward, as he ran the tip of his tongue along the cord of her neck, pressing kiss after kiss along the neckline of her dress, down into the dip between her breasts. He pressed one last peck to the reddening spot on her neck before raising his head to inspect his work. Blood had risen to the surface though he had not broken any skin, and it seemed like a finer parting message than any. After that, he couldn’t bring himself to peck her on the lips and whisper goodbye. He had said enough already.

               That night the princess fell asleep with her fingers resting against the spot on her neck, the hum of the bruise lulling her to sleep as if the man who had given it to her was cradling her head to his breast. When she woke, she flew to the vanity, reveling in the purplish tone and the promise she took from it. She resolved to return the favor someday. She had not anticipated the day to arrive so soon.

* * *

 _Demon Kings were not meant to court maiden princesses._  They were certainly not meant to skip the courting process altogether and rush into the binding of blood and heart before so much as a public announcement could be made to couple them appropriately.  

               Zelda had hidden the mark with starched collars and feathery ruffs, but the slip of a nightgown at breakfast had landed her into a barrage of heated inquiries that lasted long beyond dinner. It was her guardian Impa, who she most trusted, who had at last gotten the truth out of her. As it was Impa, whom she most hated, who had dispatched the soldiers immediately.

               The Demon King rests beneath the tallest tree in Zelda’s private garden. In a plot only the princess and a gravedigger with a clouded conscious know of, lies the Gerudo man with the feather touch. It is visited at the rise of each morning by the woman who bears a scar in the shape of him. She leaves the mark of flowers against his grave every day.


End file.
